


A Very Long Year

by laufey



Category: Defense Mechanism - Fandom, Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Not Really Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27192665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufey/pseuds/laufey
Summary: How far would you go for your family?
Comments: 20
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

_Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake_   
_and dress them in warm clothes again._   
  


_~Richard Siken_

*******

Happy ends were all alike. First a tragedy happened, something was done about it, something was completed, and this all brought a result that ranged from satisfactory to excellent. The bad news was that to have a happy ending you needed to break your heart at the beginning.

Álfgeir Logi Sæmundarson was lying in his bed with his arms around his friends once again. His trousers were wet and clung to him, and he wanted to shed them already, but right now he somehow couldn’t let go of any of them. He would not do anything that would ruin the moment right now. 

Gabríel was whining about all kinds of unforeseen changes, such as sweating from his ass, that romantic. Álfgeir closed his eyes and felt tears dropping in both his ears at the same time, the room was full of voices and laughter, and he wondered fleetingly if there was any way to preserve this moment to last for the rest of his life.

“Gabríel, by the way”, Hilmar was saying, “this all made me think. After we die… you aren’t coming with us, are you? You’ve got your Christian destination, right?”

“Dunno, maybe I could come with you guYS INstead”, Gabríel joked in a creaky voice that jumped to a high pitch before dropping down again. There was a second of held breath silence before the others burst into a laugh. 

“SHUT UP uuugh, I can’t help it!”

“Sorry, sorry”, Álfgeir tried. He made another attempt at being serious, but the laughter forced its way out through his nose, which somehow made everything even funnier.  
  
Steinunn collected herself fastest. “No but seriously though. You can’t just stop being a Christian, you know? Wouldn’t it… be kinda bad for you to refuse whatever is set to happen after death?”

Gabríel shrugged. “The wAY our system works, I can’t actually trust I’d ever make it to Heaven in the first place. It’s like… you gotta earn goodness points to enter, and you also can’t have many badness points. I’m NOT SURE - sure I’m doing well with all that, and that puts me in a bit of a spot.” 

He laughed at his own voice not settling at any one level. 

“BuuuuuUT another problem is that I  _ can _ totes trust any of you never setting a toe inside that place. And, er, I’m… KInda sure I’ll miss you all a lot if -”

“Ooooh someone’s all sappy…”

“SHUT alREADY.”

Stories would end in a place like this. At this point there would be a small, joyful illustration, and the text The End in some large, friendly, but final font. The reader would be left to assume the story closing happiness lasted forever, or at least as long as the people involved were still alive.

Life didn’t really work like that, though, did it. It was full of small and large happy endings, and after them things continued as usual. Life went on. People emerged from their joyful moments and were thrown back to reality, where nothing was magical, soft, and warm. No matter what you did, you could not keep these moments in a pickle jar for sadder days.

That’s why enjoying all the happy ends to the full was so important.

You had to savor them, before they were gone. You tried to press every possible detail into your mind, so that once the mundane next week began you’d have something to look back to, something that reminded you what life could sometimes offer. 

You would remember it, like you remembered the simple joy of throwing a ripe pumpkin down from a friend’s balcony at age eight, just to hear it explode on the asphalt. It would imprint into your mind. You would hold on to your friends knowing they understood you, and if they didn’t, at least they would put up with your bullshit until you got yourself back together. You’d share a naked, wet hug on his bed that had probably soaked through to the mattress by now. 

(The floor had large puddles of water everywhere, someone would have to mop it up later, that someone probably being Álfgeir.)

You would never forget these fleeting moments for as long as you lived, and that was what kept you going.

The evening was warm, but with a hint of coldness in the air, and the scent of the sea making its way into the small apartment somehow. It was that strange gap in the year when summer was already over, but autumn wasn’t here yet.

In a few days, a new year would begin.


	2. Chapter 2

_Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means_   
_we’re inconsolable._   
_Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us._   
_These, our bodies, possessed by light._   
_Tell me we’ll never get used to it._   
  
_~Richard Siken_   
  
*******

Tragedy in the beginning, that was essential. For Álfgeir that meant the year during which he had lost them, one by one.

It had been the worst year he had ever waded through, and considering all the ones he’d waded through before, that was saying something. He couldn’t quite pinpoint where the snowball had begun, only that by the time the avalanche was on him it was too late for anything. Maybe it had been Gabríel’s stubborn inability of letting go of things. Maybe it had been Hilmar’s death. Maybe - just maybe - it had been the gigantic fuck up regarding Steinunn. 

They had been together for about three months, which wasn’t much, but was still longer than anyone else he’d been with (the two idiots excluded). She was funny, he loved hanging out with her, even at times when the only thing they did was chat about nothing important.  He had definitely wanted to keep her in his life, but not, it turned out, as his wife, because that somehow required feelings he did not have, and had never once experienced.

Álfgeir Logi had no idea why people had crushes on each other. To him, attraction was in how much he liked your personality. To tie himself forever to only one person felt unbearable and suffocating, and not at all like he assumed a good match should make you feel like.

He knew Hilmar and Gabríel wouldn’t have minded him having a wife, a girlfriend, or the whole horde of customers he had ended up with because of their stupid joke. What they had was something… different. He wasn’t even sure if they were friends, or lovers, they were floating somewhere in between. They weren’t just friends - there was way too much sex for that. Yet, none of them ever cared about the other two’s other relationships.

Those other relationships… they weren’t any kind of a silver medal either. He knew for fact Hilmar had loved his Katrín more than anything, that he kept hanging out with the other two thanks to Katrín not feeling upset by it. It was a little bit convoluted, he’d say if you really pressed him for an answer, but to him Hilmar and Gabríel were brothers to his soul. Maybe he couldn’t feel romantic love for them, but there were many types of love in this world, and none of them was weaker than the others.

Everything said, Gabríel _did_ love Steinunn. The two were quite a power couple right from the start, but he still wished he could have handled the break-up with Steinunn a little bit better. 

They had been fighting a lot those days after he'd done it, he and Gabríel. Them having a drunken brawl was nothing unusual, but they hadn’t fought this seriously before. Hilmar was there to try to cool things down, as usual, he had played referee for them for as long as Álfgeir could remember, but this time it somehow hadn’t worked. Bad feelings lingered on long after each fight, and as they piled on top of old grudges, they began to drive a wedge through their friendship.

Álfgeir Logi had never had to deal with someone dumping him, in a romantic sense. He didn’t know how comparable these feelings were, but falling out of friendship was the kind of pain he didn’t wish for his worst enemies. It never left him; he couldn’t distract himself no matter what he did. It was on his mind the first thing in the morning when he woke up, alone. It sat on his throat the whole day, and sneaked into his thoughts. The thing he wanted the most was to somehow go back to what they had been before, and then do things differently, but of course that kind of wishes were not very realistic.

The final blow had been Hilmar receiving a new position. He was sent from working Shore to Breakwater, and suddenly there was nothing stopping him and Gabríel from really rubbing on each others’ nerves whenever they had the chance.

Breakwater was boat work, a form of scouting, and though it had its risks it was better than standing on the Wall as beast bait. Married men tended to get jobs there. It was mostly keeping an eye on the radar, waves, the sea and the weather, and informing Shore Boys of whatever was on its way. 

Supposedly, the death rates of Breakwater workers were much lower than that of the Shore Boys - Shore Boys was another name for the Wall Defence force, and boys they were. Young men from the slums, starting at age 14, the boys who could not get any other kind of a job. The ones who were dumb enough to sell their lives cheaply. Expendable workforce.

One of the three of them had finally made his way out of working Shore alive, which somehow made it feel even worse that not even two weeks into his new, safer job, Hilmar had gone overboard.


	3. Chapter 3

_I looked at all the trees and didn’t know what to do._

_A box made out of leaves._   
_What else was in the woods? A heart, closing. Nevertheless._

_Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else._

_~Richard Siken_   
  
*******

The shift manager never gave them any details, which was supposedly tactful. No one wanted to know their workmate had been eaten, they would all agree, better for everyone to call it an accident at sea instead. This was the first time Álfgeir doubted how good that protocol really was. “Going overboard” was too foggy a way to put it, it left you wanting for something - just something more, to make it feel more real. He didn't mean gory details or any such, just a "he looked the other way and didn't see it coming" would have done.

It might also have been the tone of his voice. The death was announced like a piece of daily news, one among others, now for the weather. Maybe that was all it was to him, Álfgeir mused, it was not the first death he had heard announced, and before this his brain had always helpfully glossed over the tragedies. As long as it wasn’t someone he knew it wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t hurt him, life went on, and he was alright. For someone the manager’s age, he must have seen this happen so many times before. So many slum boys, so many accidental drownings.

He shook himself back to the current moment just to hear the shift manager note that there was, alas, no corpse. "Because", he droned on as if reading memorized script, "trying to retrieve it is too dangerous."

This happened occasionally as well, but it was unusual. Normally they would do everything they could to send at least _something_ for the grieving family to bury, but sometimes there really was nothing left. 

"As it is, someone needs to inform Hilmar’s widow that she needs to apply for a grief bonus in her widow’s pension", the manager added. No corpse to be found meant an extra payment for the closest family member, in Hilmar’s case his wife, Katrín. Supposedly it was a respectful gesture, but, Álfgeir thought with something heavy and suffocating rising somewhere in the back of his mind, it could also be a way to pay people to be quiet. No complaints please, no protests, Wall Defense was an important job, they were responsible for the lives of everyone, and sometimes sacrifices just had to be made.

“What if - uh - boss, Katrín can’t write.” Gabríel, who had been in stunned silence until then, spoke out. His voice sounded awful, like it came from the end of a deep tunnel, all slow, dull and numb.

“Nonsense. Everyone can read and write.”

“Well, yeah, read, but writing’s a different thing isn’t it…”

“No, it isn’t. I’ll send someone to bring her the forms, she’ll fill them in and return them to the office, you guys need to go back to work.”

As they were still quietly trying to digest all this, the shift manager asked if Gabríel wanted a raise, since there now was an open job, and that was it. Case closed. One more red patch in the waves, and as the currents washed it away the world would go on as if that boy had never existed at all. 

Or that would have been it, he corrected himself, if Gabríel had not positively exploded on the spot. Of course, of course. That was their Gabríel, heart on the sleeve, rocks for brains, and no chill whatsoever.

Gabríel, not careful with his voice.

Gabríel, whose girlfriend was pregnant, getting very close to losing his job.

Álfgeir did the only thing he could think of; he grabbed him into a tight hug, and pressed his face into his sweater. That was probably the first time in many months that he had hugged him. Gabríel broke down, as he knew he would, and he held him tighter to muffle his voice. Just so no one would pay too much attention to dangerous things, he thought logically. Just to hold him because he was the only one he had left now, his heart let slip in.

They both received a week’s worth of sick leave, and an order to show up at seven like usual once that was over. Gabríel at six, mind you, Breakwater shifts started earlier.


	4. Chapter 4

_I kept my mind on the moon. Cold moon, long nights moon._

_From the landscape: a sense of scale._   
_From the dead: a sense of scale._

_I turned my back on the story. A sense of superiority._   
_Everything casts a shadow._

_Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything._

_~Richard Siken_   
  
*******

That had been the last time they really spent any time together, aside from a few fleeting encounters at work. The times they met were awkward, but no longer hostile, and he considered this new truce an improvement. 

Álfgeir didn’t feel like his company was entirely wanted near Gabríel or Steinunn though, so he kept to himself - and to the growing number of customers in his side job. It was illegal, of course, but he felt quite confident that no one who paid for his services would ever turn him in for it.

He knew there was talk about it, how he’d gotten into this work, at what age, and for how long he had been at it. Rumours said his count was over a hundred, which was amusing. Álfgeir knew better of course, but didn’t feel like correcting anything; let them talk, the more gossip, the better for business. What had once started out as a drunken joke played at him had ended up with him in a fairly cozy spot, and when you thought about it, the funniest kinds of jokes were always those that ended with their target laughing along.

The new income brought in something he had never been able to do before: make future plans. What those might include was not yet clear. Now that his, well, family for want of better word, had fallen apart, many of the things he had seen as crucial were no longer relevant at all. Maybe he’d just quit working Shore entirely. He even toyed with the idea of quitting right now, to Hel with consequences, but that would mean never seeing Gabríel again, even at a glimpse.

Gabríel worried him. Whenever he chanced to see him, he looked worse. Thinner, paler, the bags under his eyes never going away. In many ways he and Gabríel were very similar, but this was a big difference between them. Álfgeir was well used to loss, be it things or people, and he already had that bitter knowledge that life went on, no matter what was taken from him. Gabríel was new to it, and had no idea how to handle grief.

Hilmar had died around the month of Góa, while the sea was greenish gray. The year kept turning on its wheel, month by month, to Einmánuður, Harpa, Skerpla, and the warmer the days grew the more the colour drained from his friend’s face. He barely met the eyes of anyone. He would return a greeting, but trying to chat with him got only one-worded responses. He reeked of old alcohol far too often.

It was around the month of Skerpla when the dreams began.

He was walking the closed off beach of Nauthólsvík, an old world geothermally warmed beach, that was now a magnet for beasts of all kinds. Once upon a time there had been a swimming pool, a museum dedicated to some ancient war, and rocky cliffs people liked to walk, but today going anywhere near those rocks was a certain death sentence. Standing up there you were precariously close to the water level, easily visible against the sky, but had no way of seeing into the depths below.

In the dream he was half running along those old sunbathing cliffs, barely staying on his feet for tiredness. Before him a seal swam lazily through the air, turning to look at him every now and then, making sure he was still following. His breath was burning his chest and there was a sting to his side, but he tried to ask the seal to go faster.

“Nah”, the seal replied. “It’s far too late now. You wasted your chances, so take your time. Running is pointless now.”

It stopped at a ledge and pointed down to the water. He turned slowly to follow what it was showing him, not really wanting to see it. Álfgeir, with his years of experience of working Shore, thought he could maybe figure out a shape far below, distorted by the water, growing darker as it swam up toward him. He closed his eyes tightly and fought against the impulse to run away, run faster than ever, no matter how tired he already was.

The seal stood up in the air, if seals could ever be said to stand up, took a ridiculous poetry-reciting stance, and said:

“It’s just one nom and you’re gone.”

He always woke up at this point, drenched in cold sweat. He got up, had a wash, made some breakfast and maybe remembered to eat it too. Then he dragged himself to work, feeling like a bucket of nails.

He thought to ask Gabríel about that dream, with his mage ability he was a specialist in weird dreams. Then he thought again, and didn’t ask. Having that ability was already difficult for Gabríel, who believed he should not have it at all for some reason, so for most of his life he’d done his best to suppress it. Sure, if you lost something he could always use the dreaming to find it for you, but it upset him, he could tell.

“Not that I really could become a real mage or anything”, Gabríel had once said in a joking manner, “I won’t be able to afford any lessons in even the cheapest mage schools, ever in my life.”

The year kept rolling to Sólmánuður, and Álfgeir Logi felt like an unraveling ball of yarn.


	5. Chapter 5

_Yellow, yellow, gold, and ocher._   
_We stopped. We held the field. We stood very still._

_Everyone needs a place._

_~Richard Siken_

*******

It was Tvímánuður, and if a time of a year could be called a threshold, it surely was. Summer died, but the next few weeks were not autumn yet. Cold nights still turned to warm days, ushering in the short but intense harvest season; it took a long time to grow anything in the harsh climate, but once your garden was ready it was suddenly ready with everything. This all culminated in various réttir around the island, when the sheep that had been grazing on the highlands were brought back, sorted according to their ear marks, some slaughtered and the meat prepared for the long, cold season up ahead.

The year took a breather, before autumn slid in on slippery leaves and wet streets. It was the start of busy days of getting ready for winter. Álfgeir Logi postponed digging out his winter clothes day after a day, and wished nothing as badly as to return to the summer a year before.

Not all the changes in his life had been bad, though. For one, he had finally decided to get himself something he had dreamed of for years, his own bathroom. Like most people in the slum, he used communal baths if he wanted a good wash. If he just needed to smell less bad, he’d wash up in his own kitchen, where it was easy to heat the cold tap water, as well as to store buckets and other containers. 

No more of that. He had had a water heater installed and a bathtub brought in, and was finally able to soak in warm water in the privacy of his own home, instead of having to trek across the neighborhood to the nearest public bathhouse.

He had also bought a new bed with a proper mattress, wider than the old one.

The only thing missing from his bathroom dream at this point was an actual room. No need to get impatient, he reasoned, and so his new, large bed and the bathtub stood side by side in his tiny flat, taking up all the space. He didn’t really mind it. Bathtubs were amazing, almost like a geothermal pool, except you came out feeling clean instead of like you’d need, well, a bath. He could soak in a bath for hours, or at least until the water was no longer warm.

Tonight the bath water had once again gone cold while he sat in the tub. He had no idea how long he had been there, staring into nothingness, until the cooling water woke him up from whatever thoughts he was not really thinking. This tended to happen a lot these days. He would let his thoughts run around like a flock of sheep with no one to herd it, and the results were just as useful.

He stood up, toweled himself suitably dry, and quickly hopped under his quilts. Evenings were already getting cold. Turning to his side he realized he hadn’t emptied the bath, but whatever, that could wait until the morning. Unlike filling the tub, emptying it was a chore, since it wasn't exactly attached to any pipes underneath. No bathroom, no drain. Right now he was too tired on too many levels to care about that though, and anyway, what harm could his bathwater do if it sat there for one night?

It felt like he had barely drifted off to sleep, before he opened his eyes again to the dark blue midnight light. In the summer the sun never fully went down, but by now the darkness was creeping back in, stealing a few more minutes day after day. He wondered what had woken him up, when the sound came again: a quiet, but very determined knock on the door.

He dragged himself out of bed and almost fell over trying to put his trousers on, feeling very much like this was the last thing he needed right now. The quilt was warm, his new bed was comfortable, if a bit too large for him. For some reason he had thought getting a bigger one would be an improvement, forgetting that it would some nights feel very empty, and as if there should be at least two more people in it.

The corridor behind his door was dark, silent and smelled moldy, the ancient carpet the shade of brown that could once upon a time have been either red or orange. Somehow it felt quieter than usual. Then the shadows moved, and he realized someone had been standing almost right in front of him the whole time without him seeing her. Made them kinda even, his brain inserted unhelpfully, while he was still trying to get over the shock.

Steinunn still had her usual cool demeanor, the kind that a noblewoman of Settlement Era could have had. Like Hildigunnur, maybe, he could somehow totally see her keeping a calm face while mopping up the blood of her husband, in preparation to avenge him in the most violent way she could. The thought felt suddenly bad, considering who her husband was, and Álfgeir shooed it quickly out of his mind. 

At the same time, she had changed a lot. Her face seemed sharper, more angular somehow. She looked smaller than she was, and tired, the kind or tired that didn’t go away by sleeping. Álfgeir knew exactly what that felt like.

“It’s about Gabríel”, she said in a hushed tone. “Let me in.”

She kicked off her shoes at the door. They hit the wall with a thunk instead of landing at his shoe rack, but that really was his own fault for having moved it. 

“Emília is at my mum’s, she's having a grandma weekend", she said. "Álfgeir, I know things are kinda, you know, awkward with us, but you gotta tell me if you know. Where is Gabríel?”

“Uhh… not here… I don’t know really…”

“Álfgeir.”

“No I mean it, I really don’t know, we don’t hang out anymore. Haven’t seen him since the wedding.” 

Steinunn crossed her arms so tight it looked like it should have hurt, and Álfgeir began to feel something cold creep up his backside.

“So he… he’s not home?”

Steinunn let out a long breath.

“That’s not why I’m here, not entirely. He always goes out having walks at night, all on his own, doesn’t return until morning, that’s just how he is. He does it every few weeks. I don’t care”, she stopped for a moment, her fingers digging into her arms. 

“It’s just never been this long before. He went out three days ago. You sure, absolutely sure he didn’t just come here?”

She turned her face up towards him, and now her voice took a firm tone.

“He’s told me about you two, well, three. I’m not mad, I promise, _please tell me you’ve been bonking him all those times when he didn’t come home_.”

The room was so full of uncomfortable silence it was almost hard to breathe. The thought that whatever Steinunn was afraid of, it would be worse than her husband cheating on her with someone she probably saw as a chickenshit prick, was probably the worst part.

Álfgeir _uhh_ -d and _well_ -d a few times, and then managed to mutter that no, alas, not that he wouldn’t have loved to bonk that guy again one day, but he really had not seen him in months. The silence dragged on relentlessly, like the only way to break it would be for him to speak, and he was out of ideas of what to say.

Steinunn was blinking furiously, wiping her cheeks every now and then, and he was doing his gentlemanly best to not notice it. Gabríel going missing without a word was not like him, and Álfgeir didn’t like it. The Gabríel he’d once known had not gone out at night to have a walk, no, his Gabríel had stayed curled up against him or Hilmar, and had stayed pretty much dead to the world until someone hoisted him up by the ankles to get him up for work. 

“I’ve been feeling something was strange.” Steinunn finally continued in a small voice. 

“A week after Hilmar died, he wanted to hurry to get married. I thought it was - dunno, being afraid of losing people again kind of thing. Now, I’m no longer sure of that. He’s done a lot of stuff, like he’s getting ready for something. Álfgeir, yesterday I found this…” 

She handed him a piece of paper, and Álfgeir felt the cold suddenly engulf him like a bucket of ice water. He was not good at reading, but there was no mistaking the form for applying for widow's pension, filled in in Gabríel’s own, horrible handwriting.

Everyone in Iceland was taught to read and write - that was the opinion of those who ran the country. In reality there were good schools, mediocre schools, useless schools, and then there were slums where getting any schooling at all was down to luck. Gabríel had gone to school, but Hilmar, Álfgeir, Steinunn, and the majority of their friends had not.

Hilmar had taught himself to read and write, and had been good at both. Álfgeir had learned from him what little he knew. Steinunn… she could read and write in her own letters, but there was no way she could ever have read this kind of text. However, she didn’t really need to know what was written on the paper to realize something was up. The paper itself was not something just anyone would have had at home. 

It wasn’t the usual type of paper, widows’ forms were written on thick, official quality sheets, and one could not access them at all before someone had died. The thought struck him right away that this was Gabríel, the fastest thief he knew, and wasn’t he the one who had gone to pick up the widow’s form for Katrín…? Looked like he had come home with two.

Which meant he had been planning this, whatever it was, right from the moment he had heard Hilmar was gone. 

“Tell me what it is.”

Álfgeir wanted to crawl under his wonderful new bed and hide, or perhaps try climbing down from his balcony just so he wouldn't have to answer, but that wasn't exactly helpful. Besides, knowing Steinunn, she had already guessed it anyway and just wanted him to confirm it.

“It’s - it’s for applying for a widow's pension. With, um, filled in part for if the body can’t be retrieved. No date on it, I guess he meant this for, uh, just in case.”

He had meant the last part as assuring, but it sounded hollow even to him. Steinunn was quiet for the longest time. From the corner of his eye, Álfgeir saw something behind his window glide through the air as if it were water, but when he turned to look, it wasn’t there anymore. He almost turned away, when something else outside caught his eye.

“I have an idea where he might have gone”, he said, already putting on his tunic. “Not sure you should come though, you don’t know the area, and there’s gonna be some stairs and narrow corridors and such.”

“Then you just gotta make sure I don’t fall and die”, she said, and her voice left no room for arguments. “He’s my husband.”


	6. Chapter 6

_A man saw a bird and wanted to paint it. The problem, if there_   
_was one, was simply a problem with the question. Why paint a_   
_bird? Why do anything at all? Not how, because hows are easy—_   
_series or sequence, one foot after the other—but existentially why_   
_bother, what does it solve?_   
  
_~Richard Siken_

*******

Steinunn located her shoes, and together they slipped outside, where time held its breath for the midnight hours. They didn’t talk as they walked through the empty streets of Hótelhverfi, where people had made new homes in hotels long since abandoned. They continued toward a former residential area called Teigar, now half fallen to ruin after everything useful had been stripped off the houses.

Once upon a time this had been an area where middle class families had lived in beautiful houses, with gardens all around, but by now it had fallen far from its former days. Teigar was treacherously near to the sea, and the only people living in what remained of it did so at their own risk.

Teigar wasn’t fenced off yet, not at this time. A few decades and a few beast scares more and it would be, and everyone still living in the area would be forced to leave their homes, but on this night one could easily enter the narrow walkways of Teigar. The roads were more pothole than road, trees overgrown, the shadows of the houses against the returning daylight drawing a jagged outline one would rather not look at too long. Its silhouette was easily recognizable, and could be seen from Álfgeir's window.

This was where Gabríel used to live, renting a basement apartment that was barely inhabitable. After he moved together with Steinunn and settled his chickens in her backyard, no one moved in his old home. Most likely no one was desperate or stupid enough, because Gabríel sure had been both at the time he’d agreed to live in this hole.

Álfgeir put one arm behind his back, Steinunn grabbed his wrist, and her walking right behind him, he led her down the narrow stairs. The door would not be locked, Álfgeir knew. It was impossible after all those years of humidity doing its work on the door frame, it could only be squeezed half shut. 

They made a quick search through the three rooms and long corridors in between, and found out that though there was no Gabríel at the moment, someone had definitely been there not that long ago.

Many areas that should have had a layer of dust were suspiciously clean. The sink in the bathroom had droplets of water, Steinunn remarked. There was, for some reason, a miniature scale on the kitchen table, with a few empty bottles that still bore a sour scent of beer. There were even a few unopened ones. Steinunn opened one, sniffed at the bottle, and found the contents too fresh to have sat there for very long.

“Look, I’m positive he wouldn’t be here, or any other place you would first check”, she said, taking a sip. “Well, this beer’s not gone old in the slightest. Anyway, he would have known you knew about this place. If he filled in the part on missing corpse for extra benefits, he was assuming that in case it was needed, no one might find him, ever.”

Álfgeir leaned his chin on his palms.

“Hate to say this but that makes a lot of sense… Still, this all sounds a bit too much for a Christian. Don’t they always need a whole set of rites sung over them or something, and they have to be buried in their own burial grounds too, else they can’t go to their Halls of Heaving, or what was it?”

“Halls of what again?”

“Can’t remember… I once read a bit of his book, their god got mad at some people so he flipped some tables. Probably once you die, you finally get to throw shit around as much as you like.”

Another silence between them, only broken by Steinunn emptying half the bottle in one go.

“Right”, she concluded. “But - hear me out, this is stupid and crazy and whatever, but what if. What if avoiding going to the Halls of whatever was the whole point.”

“Not being buried according to protocol?”

“Yeah. What if he wants the process to halt in his case. What if… he’s planning something…”

“He’s obviously planning _something_ , yeah. Give me your best guess. I don’t care what it sounds like, have I ever cared if you say something stupid or crazy, come on.”

Steinunn finished the beer and plonked the bottle in front of him. “Right, so sit on this for starts.” She smiled, and something about her made him think it might have been the first time in months. 

“It’s all about Hilmar”, she continued without missing a beat. “It’s been about him this whole time. Gabríel’s been making all these just-in-case preparations, and he’s been gone every now and then, which makes me think he’s been practicing. Mapping it out. He's been doing a lot of that all around, like figuring out how the whole mage business works.”

There was a surprise.

“He’s finally going to learn it? I thought his god didn’t like mages…”

Steinunn shrugged.

“I’m not sure his god cares, to be honest. His home though, they’re real strict on lots of things, so I think it’s more that he grew up around people who told him mages were bad. These same people also told him being left-handed is somehow offensive and wrong, so yeah… dunno what god’s gonna flip a table over that kinda stuff. 

Recently he’s been talking about all this, how he thinks that maybe being a mage isn’t actually evil. People are born with all sorts of qualities, he says, his god gives people these things as he sees fit. Maybe whether being a mage makes you good or evil, depends on how you use those gifts.” 

Álfgeir nodded.

“Can’t say you’re wrong about his parents. Dad, mostly. They’ve made up since he ran away, but things are always somehow awkward and tense when they meet.”

“Most importantly though, he’s been asking me a lot about _our_ afterlife the past half year. Directions, where is what. That sort of stuff.”

“Why in the fuck does he need all that when he’s got his own Halls to go to. What does he want to do.” 

Neither sentence was a question, and as their eyes met over the table they both knew the answers already.

“Oh, one more. What _does_ happen to Christians if they don’t get in their Halls after death? They can’t just linger around, or else we’d have way more ghosts.”

They were quiet for a while, trying to remember if Gabríel had ever said anything about the other option, but neither could remember it. Perhaps nothing happened, maybe you’d just sit outside the Halls. Steinunn returned to the topic.

“Álfgeir, more importantly, if you were Gabríel, where would you think no one would find you?”

He looked over the room and into the night outside. The air looked blue, and from the small window he saw something that made immediate, horrible sense.

“Welp. There’s his old chicken coop, for example.”


	7. Chapter 7

To call it a chicken coop was stretching the idea somewhat. It had at best been a hastily built shack, meant to keep his chickens dry and in some shelter from the wind, and when he had moved he had taken the most useful parts with him, using them to build a new, sturdier one. What was left was just a lonely plate of corrugated iron lying over some pieces of wood, metal wire and other leftovers. He had to give it to Gabríel, few would have thought to look under that plate.

“Ok, he’s not completely dead”, Steinunn said after a while, making great effort to sound nonchalant. She gave Gabríel a few gentle slaps to try to get him to react. “Not waking up either.”

“Probably drunk out of his mind”, Álfgeir pointed out. 

Sure enough, adding to the beer he had no doubt been drinking first, there was an empty bottle of Aunt Nadia’s homemade by his feet. Álfgeir took a step forward to pick it up, and accidentally kicked something. It rolled away, making small glass-clinks on its way. Steinunn rummaged in the dark to find what it had been, but Álfgeir advised her against it: the rubbish lying all around was full of sharp bits, going in without gloves on was asking for lockjaw.

He turned his attention back and tried to shake some life back into Gabríel. Aside from being cold and wet, he seemed to be doing much better than he had feared.

“Gonna hazard a wild guess he filled his belly with beer first and then chugged this whole thing in one go. Good to know he wasn’t about to kill himself, although one whole bottle of Nadia’s is getting kinda close...”

“Ugh”, Steinunn replied. “Probably something to do with how much Christians don’t like suicide, they say it’s an offence to their god or something..:”

“Right.” Álfgeir slapped Gabríel a few times more, far less gently than Steinunn had, this time managing to get him to open his eyes a little bit. He lifted him up to a sitting position, and Gabríel rewarded his work by emptying his whole stomach on him.

“Ohhhhhh maaaan Gabríel, that’s gross.”

“Good thing that was you and not me”, Steinunn said happily. 

“Let’s get him home, I’ll carry him, you walk by me.”

Álfgeir considered trying to clean his shirt, gave up on the thought, and just took it off. The sweater would have to be enough until he got a change. 

Carrying a vomit-soaked tunic across the old town with Gabríel on the other arm and Steinunn on the other didn’t sound too great, and Álfgeir glanced around to find something useful. There was an old rainwater barrel by the house, full of leaves and other kinds of trash floating on top of it. He scooped up the worst, and dunked his tunic into it a few times, rinsing it off as well he could.

He wrung the fabric, and dangling it on one hand and dragging Gabríel to his feet with the other, they started their way across the town.

Steinunn followed slightly behind him, holding onto his elbow, but the walk was awkward and took a long time. Both she and Gabríel were much shorter than him, and he had to stop them every time there was a larger obstacle on the road. By the time they were nearing Álfgeir’s he was already sweaty and exhausted. 

Steinunn’s home was still a while away. Her mother lived nearby, but they both agreed that taking Gabríel there in this condition was a little too awkward, so in the end a decision was made to haul Gabríel up the stairs to Álfgeir’s for the night.

Álfgeir dropped Gabríel onto his bed. There, almost correct, some part of his brain said, now at least one part was like a year before: a passed out Gabríel, reeking of alcohol and sick, and lying on his fresh sheets taking up all the space. Now that he was here he had no idea why he had missed this guy so much.

“Ok, all done then I guess”, Álfgeir said to no one in particular.

“Not quite”, a voice behind him spoke, making him jump. “He’s still going to be dead very soon, unless you go change his mind. Sorry about the bad news.”

He turned around, feeling that odd mixture of shock and anger one gets when a burglar stands in one's living room. Somehow the sight of a seal floating midair didn’t surprise him as much as he thought it should have. It looked very much like a regular seal, except for the fact it could apparently levitate, he thought watching it roll around lazily, scratching its belly with one fin.

“You were too late, he finally succeeded. It was a valid try of you two anyway. Nice work.”

“What?” Álfgeir said.

“What?” Steinunn asked him. “I didn’t say anything.”

“It’s - uhh - you don’t see it?”

“That supposed to be a joke? What ‘what’ was that?”

Álfgeir had a quick flashback of the small glass item he had kicked across the chicken coop by accident.

“Steinunn… you didn’t by any chance find anything interesting at the chicken coop?”

“Huh? Only this weird bottle. Seems like one of those my mum collects, got something inside it.” She gave the bottle a quick shake to demonstrate the small, grainlike rattle inside it.

Álfgeir took one good look at the label, and suddenly it felt like they were back in the beginning.

“That’s… I think _my_ mum uses this to poison rats...”

Steinunn made a full stop, like she had been paused by an outside force. Then, just as quickly, she recovered, and Álfgeir thought he could practically see thoughts swishing through her mind as she was making conclusions.

“Rat poison. Huh. Looks like this really isn’t a suicide attempt then.”

Álfgeir stared at her, then at the seal again.

“You know, you were right on you maybe sounding crazy and weird, but go on.”

Steinunn rattled the bottle again.

“If he really meant to kill himself, he would have just emptied this whole thing. What’s the point of just taking a little bit, this can’t be more than two large spoons. I think he’s aiming for being close enough to death.”

“Uhhhh why though…?”

“See, Christians can’t kill themselves, it’s in their rules, so he won’t. In any case, I remembered something - they have some punishment rooms for people that don’t meet their god’s standards, so if he just died he’d be sent to one of those.”

“Ok, that’s making a lot of sense.”

Steinunn put the bottle on his little bookcase, and went to wash her hands very thoroughly in the kitchen.

“Tying this with the mage stuff, and all the things he’s been asking me about afterlife, let’s see. My guess is he’s trying to visit some place you can only access when you're dying.”

“Hilmar.” Álfgeir said in a small voice.

“Hilmar”, Steinunn agreed.

“Hilmar Hilmar”, the seal interrupted. “Are we going soon? This is boring.”

Álfgeir spun around. He had completely forgotten the uninvited visitor.

“Wait - where? Ok, first of all, what are you?”

“Wrong question. Ask me why I am instead.”

“Ok smartypants, why are you?”

Steinunn listened to him so hard he could almost feel it.

“NOW we’re talking!” The seal sat up as if it were lying on a rock. “I am here to take you where this guy is! Coincidentally, also the other guy! With a little bit of luck and brains you might get them out, which is great because you don’t have a lot of either of those.” 

"Hilmar?" Álfgeir asked.

“Hilmar’s not here. Do you wanna see a doctor, Álfgeir, cause if you do I’d say that’s wise…” Steinunn said quietly. Álfgeir thought to explain, but only managed a weak ‘heh’ and a smile, which probably didn't make him look much better.

The seal had a small, mischievous pause. Álfgeir almost expected it to wink at him; he had stopped questioning whether any of this was real, something in the back of his mind was very certain of the reality of the situation. Gabríel would die, the seal had said. Hilmar was long gone. The seal was suggesting both could be brought back somehow, and Álfgeir Logi knew when to shut up and listen, to Hel with his reputation.

“Just don’t bank on surviving this alive yourself”, the seal concluded.

Álfgeir took a long breath.

“Yeah. I know. You’ve shown me.”


	8. Chapter 8

“I have to go. You stay here, ok, keep an eye on Gabríel.”

“Go where? Right now?”

“Yeah, it’s, I guess you can’t see this guy -”

“Álf. GEIR.”

“Or hear, I meant, sorry, I didn't mean it like that! Anyway… I might have a way to fix this, dunno, hopefully. I’ll be back soon”, he ended with a lie.   
  
Steinunn wasn’t buying it, because she knew him. However, she seemed to want to believe he had some idea, and  agreed to watch Gabríel. Someone had to, after all, and if Álfgeir was going to do his usual run away routine, that didn't leave her with too many choices. She listened to his running footsteps go down the stairs, muffled by the staircase carpet, and made a quiet decision to help herself to any beer she could find. Somewhere down below a door clonked shut so loud it probably woke up a few neighbors.

The seal went first, and Álfgeir followed as fast as he could. Somehow, no matter how much he ran the seal always stayed a little ahead, even stretching the distance larger between them. They flew through downtown and past Tjörnin, through a sleepy neighborhood of the wealthiest of Reykjavík, and past a graveyard.

Álfgeir slowed down a little. Much as he wanted to keep on, Nauthólsvík was on the other side of the peninsula, and wasting too much energy sprinting would only slow him further once he got tired. The seal was now a faintly glowing shadow far ahead of him, but the distance between them was growing shorter again. Perhaps it was waiting for him.

Near the university he finally caught up to it. 

“Where”, he managed to pant, leaning his palms on his knees, “exactly are we going to?”

The seal made a vague gesture around it and replied. “To the north, and then below, of course. Where did you think.”

“Ha ha, of course. Although, to be exact, we’re going west right now.”

“Yes!” the seal seemed to think this was funny. It turned, flicked its fins, and effortlessly swam far ahead of him. 

In a moment it was merely a distant glow again, now over the large, flat field that sat between him and Nauthólsvík. It had once upon a time been an old world airport, old people remembered, and some wrecks of those machines that had taken off from here still sat at the abandoned storages. He had seen them of course, kids like them had gotten into every possible forbidden area that was not fenced off. They had walked among the curious wrecks, trying to imagine how they could ever have been airborne, until they were spotted by a janitor, and were marched back home in shame.

Álfgeir began to run again, wondering how he had decided to go along with this so easily. Maybe he had finally snapped, that wouldn’t be a surprise… or maybe, just maybe he really was more like Gabríel than he knew. Letting go of things, hah, had he ever been able to let go of a single thing that really mattered to him?

That was poverty for you. You had so very little that any loss was a massive blow, so from early childhood on you learned to not care, just to shield yourself a little. You only let a select few things become valuable to you, and if one of those was taken away... he didn't know, murder maybe. Chase that thief to the end of the world, track them down, force them to return what they took from you.

The seal waited for him again. It swam through a shrubbery that had grown here after humans had left the area to the weather and the sea beasts. Though it was swimming slower now, it took Álfgeir some time and some careful navigating around obstacles in the undergrowth to catch up to it a second time. He came to a place where the fence had fallen over, leaving a small opening in the iron mesh, slipped through it, and was finally standing on a long lost beach no one had set foot on for decades.

The sand was, like the stories all said, white. An old legend knew all of it was once brought over from some country across the sea, for some mysterious reason. Maybe just to have an unusual color, since beaches were black by nature. He figured a lot of money had once gone into it, so obviously the reason had been very important to someone once upon a time. He wondered fleetingly if it might have been brought by one of those flying machines, and just dropped off from far above. Shwoomph, beach.

Tonight it was empty, no beasts in sight. Good thing, since he had nothing to defend himself with, and he’d have to make it alive all the way to the cliffs at the water’s edge, where - he stopped the thought and didn’t let it carry on. One worry at a time.

He stopped to catch his breath again, sweating all over, and shivering in the cold breeze from the sea. The morning light was slowly making its way up from the horizon, but the whole world was still asleep.

“Eh, slow”, the seal remarked. 

Álfgeir squeezed his eyes shut. “Shut up.”

“Just a bit further.”

“I know. Shut.”

He jogged across the white sand, and everything that had washed up on it. Mostly colorful pieces of glass, shells, seaweed, dead sea creatures. The cliffs were wet and slippery, he crouched down and half-ran half-crawled up them on all fours, like a child running up the stairs, until he reached the top. There he finally stood up.

Now that it had come to this, Álfgeir Logi really, really didn’t want to die, every fiber of his being was screaming at him to turn away, and no matter how tired, run again. The seal seemed to read him.

“Don’t worry, I already told you in the dreaming what’s going to happen here.”

“Shut.”

“Coolio. Well then. One nom and -”

“One nom and I’m gone.” Álfgeir almost laughed out loud, and opened his eyes just in time to see many, many teeth. Everything went dark as the beast fell on him, there was a great pressure, and from somewhere very near came a sound not unlike a ripe pumpkin splitting on concrete.

It was probably his head this time, he thought, and disappeared.


	9. Chapter 9

After a while he opened his eyes again, to darkness that showed no sign of morning this time. He wasn’t sure where he was, but apparently there was a pool of shallow, ice cold water in there, and he was lying in it. He sat up, cursing. He didn’t usually mind cold water, but this cold was far out of his comfort zone, colder somehow than mid-winter sea. 

Glancing up again, his eyes had gotten accustomed to the darkness enough to show him he was no longer in Iceland. It was impossible to figure out what season it might be here, or what time, the air wasn't cold but the ground breathed a chill up his trousers, and the sky was cloudless and dim with a purple hue. He stood up, took off his sweater, and tried to wring it dry. It was a good thing that wool garments were always warm, even when soaked through, but putting the drenched cardigan back on was still far from being fun.

On the right side he saw a wide road, paved with stone slabs worn smooth with traffic. There were people walking along that road, none paid him any attention. Somewhere far ahead he thought he could see a bridge over a river, with a top that looked golden. That might have been a trick of the eyes, he thought, there was not enough gold in the whole known world to actually pave a bridge roof with.

“Now what”, he said into the twilight, mostly to himself.

The seal popped up from the shallow puddle next to him.

“Now”, it said happily, “we cheat!”

“Huh?”   
  
“Normally, there’s this long route you have to take to get there, but that’s… let's say if you play by the rules you'll definitely fail. Anyway, following that road to where we need to go takes days, and that's boring. I don’t wanna." It gave him a seal-shrug, which was mostly his rolls of fat bunching up to his neck and sliding back down. "We’re going to use a shortcut instead, because we can." 

"Ok, nice to know, didn't really look forward to a long walk after that Reykjavík marathon to be honest!" Álfgeir said, and realized immediately that somehow he was no longer tired, or out of breath.

"Well, it's not something just anyone can use, you're just lucky to have me. Try to avoid getting caught into the spears, or cut by anything, there's gonna be all sorts of sharp stuff floating about. If something tries to eat you on the way, try to not let them, that would be bad.”

The seal doubled in size, then tripled. “Bad”, Álfgeir repeated slowly, staring at the growing seal. “What kind of bad?”   


“Super bad”, the seal said in a somber tone. It was now the same height as he was. It grabbed the back of his trousers and dove right into the puddle.  
  
The water, that should not have been deeper than a few centimeters, engulfed him on all sides, icy cold and endlessly deep.

“MMGblub” Álfgeir tried. Alas, even the dead could apparently not speak or breathe underwater, so he held his breath instead, and saved his opinions of the seal for a later time. 

They dove further down, far beyond what little light there had been in the world above. The cold was so fierce it felt like teeth on his bones, which didn’t make much sense if he thought about it twice. He knew exactly what teeth on his bones felt like, and it had been nothing like this. 

He glanced around, seeing vague shapes float around them, tiny sparks of light here and there, like fire reflecting from eyes. His sweater caught on something, but not for long; one tug from the seal and the knit split open as if cut by a blade. The lights it was swimming past were taking notice of the two, and made lunges at them, faster than anything he'd ever fought on the Wall before. One shortcut, right, he thought, apparently the seal thought that the possibility of getting eaten wasn’t as bad as the possibility of being bored for a few days. Álfgeir wanted to laugh, if he only could have. He found himself almost relating to the seal, now if he could only draw breath really, really soon he might try to make friends with it.

Suddenly the sea ended. They swam through the bottom - which was somehow also the surface of water - and jumped high into the air. The seal let go of him and dove back into the water with a massive splash, but Álfgeir kept falling up. Down, he corrected himself, the ceiling of this place was made of water, and by the way, no way would he ever learn to like that seal.

He fell onto something smooth and warm, that seemed to slow down his fall gently before he came to a halt. Surprised, he sat up, looking at what he’d landed on. It was soft and glowing, full of little lines, and as he looked up and up, the shape began to make sense, five fingers spreading out from one side, and the other -

Letting his gaze follow up to the wrist, arm, shoulder, and finally to the face, he quickly understood many things about this place. Such as where he was, he now knew it with perfect clarity. 

Sitting up on his knees, he wondered how he wasn’t afraid. By all the written records that humanity had, this should have been a pretty bad spot for him, but no matter what he couldn’t feel even a speck of fear. Maybe he even liked the giantess a bit already? He was definitely grateful that she’d caught him with her right hand instead of the left one.

“Another one of you?” she said in a tone that sounded like someone who'd been to a comedy show, and now there was an extra jokester. “Well, off you go…” She shrunk in size, letting him gently on the floor. She ended up somewhat on the same scale as him, though still much taller.

“Hello”, Álfgeir tried, giving her his best smile. “Good evening. Night? What time is it?”

“It’s any time you like”, she answered with a smile.

It needed to be said right away that Hel looked exactly like she was described to look like. However, something was clearly different from anything he had expected, and he took a quick glance around to figure out what it was. 

Looking up, he saw the watery ceiling sit at the roots of a gigantic tree. The hall was too large to figure out where it ended. It had a soft glow about it, and he thought he could see shapes of people, some sleeping, some walking around, some engaged in whatever activities they seemed fond of. It was warm here, though he saw no fireplace anywhere, and he could definitely make out shapes of long tables laden with food here and there.

He noticed he was still dragging the sweater in one hand. It was still wet, and he tried once more to wring it, but alas, it stayed stubbornly gross. He managed to force one arm through a wet sleeve, and gave up. Leaving the other sleeve hanging empty he buttoned the sweater in the front haphazardly, and judged it good enough. He looked back up to Hel, who looked back at him as if she was waiting for him to get the joke.

“You know”, he said, “Somehow I always thought this place would be… dunno, a lot worse?”

“Now why would you think that? It’s a place for resting, and I do my best” Hel answered in a tone that could as well have said 'Get it? Get it? Wink wink nudge'. Well, fine then, if she wanted him to figure things out on his own so she could have a laugh at him, he was more than ready.

“I… like it? I’m just wondering - sorry, super sorry, really, I don’t mean any offence or stuff, but isn’t this palace supposed to be kinda… gloomy? In all the texts they say Helheimr is full of stuff like hunger and illness and slow service and. Um.”

He gave her a little wink. He was reminded how many times he had been warned against flirting with death back when he had been alive, man, if those people could only see him now. He went on.

“You were supposed to look fierce and, like, moody. Which you do not”, he hurried to add, “I mean obviously I know who you are, you match the description, but still. You’re much nicer to look at that I’ve been told." Could be the smile, he thought to himself.

Hel rubbed her palms together, clearly preparing to share some big, juicy secret with him. 

“Might depend on who I'm looking at. The guy who described me... let's say I'm always happy to make the door slam him on the back on the way out.”

“Oh?”

Álfgeir quickly ran through the list of books that described Hel and her halls, and indeed, the source for all of the descriptions was the same in every one of them. Hel tilted her head to a side, and continued with a somber tone:

“Well… imagine being kidnapped from your home as a child, and being thrown into solitary confinement just because someone doesn't like your dad, and thinks you’re too ugly. I didn’t ask to rule over the underworld, you know, and nobody asked me if I wanted to. I was perfectly happy living with my mother. So, ha, don’t blame me if I’m not all smiles and welcomes when the guy behind all that comes to visit!”

Ah. Made sense. There was one more thing though.

“You were also supposed to not like answering questions…”

“Seriously? He said that?” 

Hel looked like he'd just served her some really top-quality gossip.

“Well, suppose I’ve given him plenty of reason to think that. But really, have you any idea how bored I’d be if I didn’t at least get to chat with people a bit.”

Yes, Álfgeir decided, he did like Hel.  



	10. Chapter 10

They had been walking while they spoke, so at first he didn't pay attention to it, but now he was beginning to notice something odd. Something that did not quite suit the calm mood of the halls.

“Ignore the noise if you can”, Hel said, as if reading his mind. “They’re trying to, uh, negotiate which one of them goes back and which one stays. You know what, I'll just say as it is, they're both shouting at each other and neither is listening. I was going to let them continue until they got it out of their systems, but I didn't quite realize how much energy they had.”

The seal’s earlier words came back to him with whiplash force. It had said something about Álfgeir possibly getting one, or even both of them, out of here. It didn’t make much sense, the dead were dead and stayed that way, but if it could be done then he would do it, whatever 'it' was. Wasn't that why he had fed himself to a whale beast?

“Wait - so - are you actually going to let one of them go?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I?” Hel replied, as if it was something he should have known already. “It’s nothing too unusual, happens once in a century or so. The deal is soul for a soul.”

“But”, Álfgeir was trying to put his words in as polite form as possible, “I thought there was no leaving your halls once you enter… no one’s ever left, not even Baldur…”

Hel gave him a sly look. “Oh yes, dad’s little moment of revenge! He wasn't all too happy about how his kids were dealt with, but even so that was a bit heavy-handed if you ask me.” She whistled through her teeth (it was probably the only way she could whistle) and continued:

"Hermóður came here for exactly the same purpose as that other guy did, to offer me a ransom so I would let Baldur leave. Smartass thought he could fool me, and didn't walk through the gates... had I let him stay in Baldur's stead I could not have kept him here. That's why I simply gave him a task that was very hard to complete, to ask for everyone to mourn over Baldur. He failed, Baldur stayed, the end."

"Ohhhhh wait, I didn't enter through the gates either, but I am really very dead, I promise. I saw it happen, was gruesome. Does this mean I could just go back then?"

Hel shrugged. "Yes, if you wanted to! Likewise, one of those noisy guys can leave if he wants to. He entered the normal route, but I can't hold him here, because he's still got a living body somewhere. See, almost like you but the exact opposite."  
  
Álfgeir was still trying to get over this new piece of information. "So... people have left your halls before. Is that really fine with you?"

She shrugged. It seemed like she didn’t even have a proper explanation for him. Hel was part jötunn after all, perhaps a slight chaos made her feel at home. Maybe she had, at some point in time, made some impromptu decision she now couldn’t get away from. Maybe her promise to let Baldur leave if her conditions were met had been the point, after which people would have started use the precedent as a wedge. Whatever it was, it made Álfgeir want to give her a hug and invite her over for a drink.

Hel changed the topic.

“One of those two I couldn't have forced to stay here anyway, even if his body in Midgarður had died. He’s a Christian and has his own plan, so unless he agrees to stay here on his free will, he can just go wherever it is that Christians go after they die. Coincidentally, he has already agreed to stay in case the other guy returns to Miðgarður in his stead, so he can't back out of that anymore.”

“So that’s why he came here. Gabríel I mean. He figured out the conditions. He studied the process, found a way around it, and came to trade himself for Hilmar.”

“Oh, I see you know them!” Hel said happily. “That’s correct, he was very smug about it when I confirmed his theories to him.”

There it was, the reason for Gabríel’s nightly ‘walks’. He had been trying this, possibly poisoning himself with a little higher dosage each time, until it had been enough to make him so close to death that he gained an entrance to the underworld. That's probably what the scales on his old kitchen table had been for, weighing the poison, adding some more each new try. What a stupid, dangerous plan, and the fact it had worked made him angry.

However, there was one more thing that bothered him.

“How would that even work though? Hilmar’s - uhhh… Hilmar was never found. We assumed he was eaten by some sea beast.”

“You’re wondering if he’d have a body once he goes back up there? Yes, he would.”

Hel made a dramatic pose with one hand over the beautiful half of her face. “I can make any wish come true for the dead, and I do. These halls are the golden rooms where everyone finally gets what they always wished for.” Then she switched sides, now hiding the decayed half. “I can, however, make some wishes come true. For the ones that go back after a soul for a soul deal… I can create their body anew.”

“Oh”, Álfgeir took a moment to digest this. “Just the old one?”

“Yes, unless you gain a wish from me. I _can_ make improvements, but I don't do that for free. If you gain such a wish, you don't have to go back with your old body, I can fix things to your liking. Does not even have to be a human body, in case you always wanted to be a sheepdog for example.”

Álfgeir would have pricked up his ears, if his ears had only moved like that.

“Gained a wish? How does one gain a wish from you? Asking for a friend.”

Hel smiled at him again. “Simple. Make me laugh.”


	11. Chapter 11

The arguing went back and forth and got nowhere at all. It felt almost like coming home after a long day at work, Álfgeir thought, and then felt a bit empty at the thought that that might never be the case again. One of the three of them would stay behind, once again it would be two out of three. He nudged Hel, managing to hit his funny bone on her rib.

“Owh. Um. Just… hypothetically speaking, is there any way all three of us could go back together?”

Hel had clearly been expecting the question. She gave him an understanding glance, managing to look a little bit sad as well.

“Alas, no. One of you entered the normal route, and I have claim over him: that counts as one soul in my books. If you all went back, my halls would end up missing one soul that should be here, and I really can't let something like that happen.”

She continued after a while: "I take it you're agreeing to stay behind? If you don't, you'll be sent back automatically once those two decide which one stays and which one goes."  
  
"Yes", he said without hesitation. "I'm in. It's a deal. I agree to stay. Unless - hm,"  
  
Álfgeir thought he could suddenly see back in time to that moment that gave precedent for people occasionally being able to leave, if conditions were met, and how people knowing this must have given her endless trouble over the years. Once in a century, about? She had said something like that, and those were only the successful attempts. What would happen, if the count of souls didn't match, and people started using _that_ as a precedent?

“No way to bend them rules a bit?” he suggested quietly. Just because he could sympathize didn't mean that he'd just accept things without trying to wriggle his way out first. 

“Nope. None what so ever.”

“Any chance to work around them? Again, asking for a friend.”

Hel turned around, and now she seemed to tower over him for a moment. He thought he saw a glimpse of the Hel the priests talked about, gloomy, strict and unforgiving, but that was gone in a blink. She was back to being just herself.

“You mean if there’s any way you can trick me into letting you all go.” Hel smirked a bit, or maybe she didn’t, she had turned her attention back to Gabríel and Hilmar and from this side of her it was hard to say. 

“People always try, and always fail. I’ve seen everything, but never have I ever seen anyone succeed. Please keep in mind whose daughter I am, I may have some natural skill in seeing through all kinds of trickery.”

“I’ll do my best, then.”

“It’s futile”, Hel said happily, now back in her best mood.

“Whatever”, he shrugged. “If nothing else, at least it might get a chuckle outta you.” 

He strode nonchalantly into the middle of the fight. Hilmar noticed him first, then Gabríel; he gave them a wide, toothy smile each, enjoying his grand entrance to the full.

"Álfgeir? Wait - how?"  
  
"Oh, just a secret skill of mine. Easy-peasy."

"Álf. GEIR."  
  
"Funny that, you know, that's exactly what Steinunn said too."

It became very quiet for a few seconds, and then it was suddenly twice as loud as before. Álfgeir thought it was good they were both trying to shout over each other, he was certain he didn’t want to hear their opinion on him right now. He grabbed Hilmar into a tight hug, almost getting punched to the ribs for his trouble, but at the last moment the swing turned into a hug instead. The sweater slipped off his shoulder and fell off his arm, but he really couldn't bother with it right now. He picked it up absentmindedly, all the while trying to get a word in.

“NICE TO MEET YOU TOO Gabríeeeellll you made Steinunn so worried she came over to ask me, _me of all people_ , where you were”, he fumbled with the sweater, finding a sleeve while dealing with hugs from both sides was tricky. He gave up.

“Anyway”, he broke the noise again, “what’s this about who’s going back?”

Hilmar let go, just to make a theatrical pose pointing at Gabríel.

"This MORON, this utter IDIOT, walked in here where he was NOT NEEDED, wanting to send me back which I DID NOT ASK FOR-"

Gabríel sprung immediately back into action. “I came here to get you out! Katrín needs you - your mum needs you back - Álfgeir is useless without you!”

Álfgeir put his hands up, but that just wasn't enough to calm things down at this point.

“I was perfectly fine!" Hilmar shouted. "I can wait! It’s nice down here, I don’t mind, and I’m definitely, definitely NOT going to let you trade your life for mine!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that, lady over there filled me in on the basics", Álfgeir slipped in. "Two of us get to go back, she says."

This made the others fall silent again. For a while, furious thinking was going on.

“I don’t think I ever asked”, Hilmar finally spoke out. “But how exactly would we go back? Where would we end up in? I really don’t want to come back to life where I died, because that’s probably somewhere in the bottom of Faxaflói -”

Hel waved her thinner hand at him.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be anything like that. I’m nice. You get to decide exactly where you return.”

“Hm. My place would probably be the best, then”, Álfgeir said. “Let’s say we choose that.”

“Easy-peasy”, Hel replied, using the same phrase he had used before. She liked to talk with humans, she had said, perhaps that was why the way she spoke felt like an odd patchwork quilt of various different eras. Turning around, she drew a thin shape into the air and gestured the trio to come closer.

“Here’s your door, it should drop you right where you belong. Only one fits in at a time, the last one behind belongs to my halls.”

“Well, this sorted itself out then.” Hilmar said happily. “I’ve decided to stay here. I have everything taken care of, besides I died normally and entered the halls like I should have. You two go back, we’ll meet again sooner or later anyway, so off you go.”

“Sure”, Álfgeir shrugged at Gabríel. He shrugged back at him.

“I’m really sorry for this”, Gabríel continued.

“Too bad you’re alone, friend.”

“One against two, what a shame.”

“Wait,”

They grabbed Hilmar at the same time at both arms, forced them behind his back, and slammed him through the door rather unceremoniously. For a short while they could hear him scream curses as he fell, which ended in a huge splash and a faint, metallic thonk.

“Oops, he might have fallen into my bathtub.”

"You've got a bathtub now, Álfgeir? Fancy... but where does it even fit?"

Álfgeir listened to the distant splashing and bad language. He thought he could hear Steinunn remark something in a cool tone, man, that girl's poker face was unbeatable. A formerly dead man had just fallen into a bathtub in front of her, and all she'd say was "mind your fucking mouth".

"It's right there beside my bed. Couldn't fit it anywhere else. I had a bath earlier on, and it was super relaxing, so I just went to bed and didn't bother emptying it. Was gonna do that in the morning..."  
  
"So we just dunked Hilmar in your used bath water, huh. Shit, man, whichever of us goes back will return here in a second..."

From behind them, Hel had been making quiet, muffled sounds, and now she finally burst into a laughter that didn’t seem to end. She laughed and laughed, eventually falling on her knees on the floor, slapping it with one bony hand. Gabríel rolled his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I’VE BEEN TRYING MY BEST JOKES TO MAKE HER LAUGH. Nothing. Then we throw Hilmar into a bathtub and THAT'S what does it. I can’t beLIEVE this.”

“Oh, oh, HEY! It’s still a win! Hel, we earned a wish, all fair play, which one of us can use it?” Álfgeir asked.

“I - don’t - know”, she managed in the middle of laughing. “Just one, whichever.”

“I claim it then!” Álfgeir said quickly. “My wish is that you’ll change Gabríel’s body to one he’ll feel comfortable in. Make it so he'll, well, feel at home in it," he waved one hand to stop Gabríel from immediately protesting. "Yeah, Yeah, but Hilmar's ok without the top of his ear, he's always been. It's nothing that really _needs_ fixing. This is more important."

“Got it”, Hel snapped her fingers. It was a much louder snap than you’d expect, but then, she had used her left hand.

“Man, Álfgeir”, Gabríel managed. He seemed very close to tears now. “You just wasted that wish. I’m not going -”

He never got to finish the sentence; it was cut by the whole weight of Álfgeir jump kicking him in the back. He flew face-first into the door and through it, and Álfgeir thought he could hear another splash after a while, a lot smaller this time. Hilmar had probably bombed most of the water out of the tub, Gabríel had come to in his body that they had left lying on the bed, and had tried to stand up on the wrong side of it.

Álfgeir turned around, gave Hel a bow, and lunged at the door. He was immediately yanked back by the neck of his sweater.

“Hah, knew it." Hel said in a seen-it-all voice. "Told you, I can see through most -”

At that moment, Steinunn leaped halfway through the door. She grabbed the front of Álfgeir’s trousers and pulled as hard as she could. For a moment the tug of war between her and Hel continued, until the one solitary button holding Álfgeir’s sweater closed at the front gave up. It tore off and clink-clinked away under one of Hel’s many tables.

Both Steinunn and Hel fell backward, Hel on the floor, still holding Álfgeir’s sweater, and Steinunn back into the world of living, dragging Álfgeir with her. Hel stared at the shimmering outline of the door, astonished, then at what was left of the sweater she was still holding. After a while, she began to laugh again.

The fall felt longer than it was, but it, too, ended up with a splash and a thonk. A much smaller splash than either of the ones before, but double the thonk. Good thing the tub was so large, Álfgeir mused, either one of them might have been injured by the landing. He looked up to see the faint outline of the door already grow smaller on the ceiling.

“Wait - what? HOW?” Hearing Hilmar’s voice somehow felt less surprising then it should have.

“Just another secret skill of mine", Álfgeir giggled, trying to climb out of the tub. "I guess I just get along with the ladies.”

“Next time I’ll grab you by the dick. That’s the only part of you that gets along with anything”, Steinunn had already stood up, and was struggling out of her wet clothes. "Ewwww. I'd rather let Gabbi puke on me to be honest."

“Wow man, this bath tub is huge!” Gabríel said from the other side of the small room, already out of his clothes. They joined Hilmar's in a pile on the floor, hopefully soaking up some water before it would start dripping down in the apartment below. “You’ve been working hard, huh.”

“No kidding”, Álfgeir said, trying to pull his trousers away from his skin. The cold fabric sticking to him felt somehow much worse here in Miðgarður. “I never, ever, ever want to feel wet again.” He gave up and lied down, only to find out the sheets were soaked through.

“Veto on that, you smell bad enough when you’re clean”, Steinunn muttered. “Water's just water. Dry off quickly, stop whining.”

Something made a distant clicking sound, but none of them paid attention to it.


	12. Chapter 12

Happy ends were all alike. First a tragedy happened, something was done, something was completed, and now they were all here. This was what a happy ending was about; to really have one you needed a heartbreaking beginning.

Álfgeir Logi Sæmundarson was lying in his bed with his arms around his friends once again. His trousers were wet and clung to him, and he wanted to shed them already, but right now he somehow couldn’t let go of any of them. He would not do anything that would ruin the moment right now.   
  
“Guys, this feels so weird.” 

Álfgeir glanced at him with some uncertainty. He had made his wish very sincerely hoping for the best, and he trusted Hel to not do anything unfair.  
  
“You ok there?” he had to know.   
  
“Ha, yes, she’s talking to me in my mind right now, checking up on what I want and what I don’t want. Also says she’s gonna spank you.” Gabríel grinned at him when he began to protest that it wasn’t even his fault, Steinunn had pulled him through the door. 

“It’s just a tingly feeling, like I’m wearing one size too small skin, but nothing bAD -” his voice made a swoop down, and suddenly jumped to a high pitch.

“Gabbi, oh shit”, Steinunn said and started to laugh. “Your voice is breaking…”

“Oh fffuuUUCK. Say, guys, how long does it take to settle?”

“Over a year for me”, Hilmar said and burst out laughing.  
  
“Can someone turn the radiator down? I’m, like, sweating everywhere, I’m sweating from my ass...”

Outside it was evening again. A whole day had passed back in Miðgarður after Álfgeir had run outside to chase after the seal. It was warm, but with a hint of coldness in the air, and the scent of the sea making its way into the small apartment somehow. It was that strange gap in the year when summer was already over, but autumn wasn’t here yet.

In a few days, a new year would begin.


End file.
